


Requiem for Two

by changdictator



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate universe - Mafia, Angst, M/M, tw: light gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:35:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25170250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/changdictator/pseuds/changdictator
Summary: “Guess who I picked.”“Your mom?”“No, god, Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol whines, “I’m way cooler than that.”“Who then, your uncle? Your dad? Your rabbit?”“It’s aferret,” Chanyeol says, then unfolds a sheet of paper from his pocket. He clears his throat and reads in barely comprehensible English, “The person I most trust in world is Do Kyungsoo, because he is smart and nice. He is like my brother. I love you, Do Kyungsoo. Please be friends forever.”(Mafia AU — Do Kyungsoo is a mob boss and Chanyeol, his childhood best friend, has a gambling problem.)
Relationships: Do Kyungsoo | D.O/Park Chanyeol
Comments: 20
Kudos: 107





	Requiem for Two

**Author's Note:**

> Teleporting old fic, part 4 of too many

##  (2002) 

The sky is a bruised blue, squeezing and unfurling like the mouth of a hurricane in Chanyeol’s eyes. There’s going to be a storm soon; _we’ve got a big one going eastward_ , said the radio, _take in your laundry, folks!_ Chanyeol jingles the coins in his pockets, hanging back a tad for Kyungsoo to catch up, beaming as he slings his arm across Kyungsoo’s shoulder.

The weight of Chanyeol’s arm makes Kyungsoo jump—he’s only met Chanyeol ten minutes ago. They don’t really know each other. But Kyungsoo is nine years old, shy, and hasn’t really stretched into that dead-pan nonchalance of adolescence yet, so he doesn’t protest, just pretends he doesn’t notice it.

A gust of wind pushes into Kyungsoo’s mouth, shrill and thick with the scent of earth. He can’t breathe for a second, caught on an inhale. Then the wind is gone. In the distance, a red plastic bag limps down the street, an up and an up and a slow, sighing down.

“What are you doing today?” Chanyeol asks, jolly.

“I have to help my mom clean the salon,” Kyungsoo says.

Chanyeol considers it, face scrunched in thought. “So you won’t get off early?”

“No,” Kyungsoo says. He wants to turn and look at Chanyeol but their faces are too close together and he doesn’t want it to look as if they’re kissing. It would be odd, after all. He’s a boy, and Chanyeol’s a boy, and boys don’t kiss.

Chanyeol turns to look at him anyway, his lower lip a whisper against Kyungsoo’s ear, breath hot and moist against his cheek. He smells of milk and caramel. “I’ll help you. Then you can get off early.”

“Why?”

“That’s what friends are for, isn’t it?” Chanyeol grins

They’re not friends; even if they were, it’s not funny. Still, to be polite, Kyungsoo doesn’t correct Chanyeol.

When Chanyeol laughs, his arm presses more closely against Kyungsoo’s shoulder, warm and feather-light. Heart caught in his throat, Kyungsoo wonders. Maybe's Chanyeol's made of air. _Maybe we’ll be friends one day._

##  (2022) 

“Get out,” Kyungsoo orders, and Sehun and Kai are gone before Chanyeol’s lifted his head. 

“Oh, _brother_! Shit, you’re looking good!” Chanyeol yells, squirming when he recognizes him, “Is that an Armani suit? I heard only the big bosses get to wear tailored suits.”

Kyungsoo takes a drag, then drops his cigarette stub on the ground and puts it out with a heel. He’s not angry, not really. Surprised, of course. Disappointed, if he were more honest. The last time Chanyeol tried to contact him was seven years ago. He’d written to Kyungsoo on a Dollar Store postcard. On one side, a lazy, sparsely-punctuated line of scrawls and scribbles yawned into the paper: _my wife is pregnant, so I’m going to quit the business. see ya, brother!_ Flipped around, a photograph of Seoul at night, a boundless ocean of molten stars bleeding and crossing. Back then Kyungsoo had felt relieved. Chanyeol didn’t make a good gangster in the first place. He was too soft, too sensitive. But, Kyungsoo thought, he might make a good dad.

Yet seven years later, here he is. Tied down to a plastic fold-up chair, half smeared in dried blood and half bruised up past recognition, with the mafia’s dirt on his hands. Kyungsoo’s not angry. Just sad.

“How’s your kid?” Kyungsoo asks, coaxing a flame onto another cigarette. He takes a puff, then pockets the lighter and straightens out his tie.

“Oh, she’s growing up fine. Bright as a pebble. Takes after her mom, you know?” Chanyeol says, laughing, so stupidly proud. His hair’s grown out. His voice echoes against the naked, washed-out concrete walls. It takes Kyungsoo back, the sound of Chanyeol’s laughter, and it hurts him in all the places he’d forgotten.

“That’s good.” Kyungsoo nods, trying to find the words he wants to say.

“This is odd.”

“What?”

“Did your head grow rounder?”

Kyungsoo frowns, then scoffs, “Jesus, fuck off, you moron.” He never holds up long against Charming Chanyeol. No one does.

“Hey, if you’ve got to break a few bones of mine, just do it,” Chanyeol cuts in. Blood gleams off his teeth, spreading along the inside of his lips. “I get it. It’s your job, _brother_. Won’t hold a thing against you.”

There are a million questions he could ask, but Kyungsoo doesn’t. Instead he fixes his trousers, squatting down until he’s eye-to-eye with Chanyeol, “First of all, don’t _brother_ me. Do you have any idea how much you stole?”

With his head hung, Chanyeol stammers, “S-sixty million won.”

“Shit,” Kyungsoo says, “I told you not to hang around the poker tables if you don’t have the head for it.”

“Well, yeah, now I know,” Chanyeol concedes.

Sighing, Kyungsoo pulls out his check book and writes one for sixty million won. He folds it up and tucks it in Chanyeol’s breast-pocket. “This is what friends are for,” he says, before Chanyeol can ask. “By the way, there’s this new fried chicken place around the block. You still into that stuff?”

While Chanyeol is eating, Kyungsoo takes off the designer watch Junmyeon had given him and slips it into Chanyeol’s jacket, wrapped up in a napkin that says, _Pawn this for some cash to go to the barber’s_.

##  (2008) 

“Hey, hey, _brother_! _Brother_! Do Kyungsoo!” Chanyeol hollers, racing down the hallway. He’s sixteen, busted full-speed into a superhuman growth spurt and already carrying a five-o’clock shadow. Everyone in the school thinks he’s at least partially insane. In Kyungsoo’s opinion, Chanyeol’s only diverted some attention from developing his brain, is all.

He’ll be smarter one day. Hopefully.

“What the fuck do you mean, ‘ _brother_ ’?” Kyungsoo sneers, pretending to shove Chanyeol off his shoulder so he can reorganize his math notes. Truth is, there’s actually nothing wrong with his math notes. It’s simply that if he touched Chanyeol for any longer, Chanyeol would know his hands were shaking. And he would ask, because he’s dumb, and Kyungsoo doesn’t want to have to explain, because he’s dumb too, when it comes to Chanyeol.

Smug, Chanyeol cocks his head, “It’s English. It means—”

“I know what it _means_ , you asswipe, I’m asking why you’re calling me it.”

“Because,” Chanyeol shrugs, slinging an arm around Kyungsoo’s shoulder—old habits just don’t die when it comes to Park Chanyeol—and ruffling his hair, “You’re my brother.”

“Whatever.”

“Listen, if anyone gives you shit, _brother_ , send them to me. You hear? I’ll beat them black and blue.”

“Yeah, sure,” Kyungsoo scoffs. Chanyeol doesn’t know it but hard as he might try, tall as he might be, he fights like a baby. Nice people don’t normally make good delinquents. No matter how he might believe otherwise, dropping glasses for contacts and growing a couple centimeters taller doesn’t make him Goliath.

Still, two days later, when Kyungsoo’s sent to the hospital with two broken ribs and a busted leg from picking the wrong fight with Kim Jongdae, Chanyeol’s in the room beside his a mere hour later with double the bandages.

“Enjoy your piss! I love you, _brother_!” Chanyeol calls out, devious, when Kyungsoo passes his room to go to the toilet.

Kyungsoo glances at Chanyeol, whose face is buried so deep in gauze it’s nearly impossible to make out more than a mouth, and rolls his eyes. “Shut up and go back to sleep, moron.”

He’s probably not going to get any smarter than this, Kyungsoo thinks. Whatever. Kyungsoo likes the dumb version, too. In fact, he likes it a whole lot. 

##  (2025) 

Sehun finds Kyungsoo half-way into the Yubitsume meeting because he thinks there’s something Kyungsoo needs to know.

He’s wrong. There’s nothing in the world worth more than this meeting. The Yubitsume’s share on Goldmoon, and subsequently the rest of Kyungsoo’s career, is but a coin-flip away. Kyungsoo turns to Sehun, irritated. On edge. “Leave.”

“But it’s Park Chanyeol, hyung-nim,” Sehun whispers, “Your frien—”

Kyungsoo pushes Sehun a step back. Smile frosty, he announces to the round table, “Let’s take a break for some refreshments, gentlemen,” and then he’s out bolting through the streets. Shirt soaked, feet barely touching the ground, blind and deaf and heart a hammer in his throat. The thing is, Chanyeol’s just a friend. Chanyeol isn’t his problem. He doesn’t care what happens to him. Chanyeol could die and he wouldn’t give a— _Fuck, fuck, fuck._

“Oh, hyung-nim,” Baekhyun perks up when Kyungsoo tears through the double doors of the storehouse, “Is the deal done already?”

Before them, Chanyeol is tucked bound and gagged inside a rusting iron barrel. A tuft of poorly dyed hair sticks out from behind the rim. Stone-still. Perhaps Chanyeol’s dead already. Kyungsoo feels that old gust of wind slamming him in the face, all the air pushing out of his lungs at once. His shirt is cold and damp against his back and for the life of him, he can’t remember how it feels to inhale.

“No… yeah. Yeah, it’s—I just, taking a break. Is he,” He swallows, steadies himself, “Is he dead already?”

“Nah, he’s not. Passed out, though. He hit one of our casinos and tried to run with two billion won. I was just about to cut off his finger,” Baekhyun hums, “Why, is there something wrong, hyung-nim?”

“Leave him to me, then,” Kyungsoo says. “It’s been a while since I got my hands dirty. Go get some lunch.”

When Chanyeol wakes, Kyungsoo has finished two packs of cigarettes and is moving onto his third. The ashes tumble down his trousers, crumbling away into a fine layer of bitter snow at his feet. Despite his age, Chanyeol still looks so young, the son of a bitch. On his wrist, weathered and dirty, is the watch Kyungsoo had slipped him years ago.

After he finds his voice, Chanyeol leans back and murmurs something. Kyungsoo watches him, his lips quivering, his head thudding back against the barrel when he tries to lift it. “Why did you come?”

“I don’t know,” Kyungsoo replies. It’s not a lie.

“Are you going to cut off my finger? That last guy… he said, you’re going to—”

“I told you last time, didn’t I? I told you, _don’t steal, Chanyeol._ I fucking told you, you moron,” Kyungsoo swears under his breath, kicking Chanyeol’s barrel. Though the impact barely makes a noise, pain swells deep into his bones. He’s not angry. He’s just—really—

“Kyungsoo-yah, I’m sorry,” Chanyeol whimpers, chewing his lower lip and staring at his knees.

Running a hand through his hair, Kyungsoo kicks the barrel again. And again, and again, until he’s breathless, until the collar of Chanyeol’s shirt’s wet with tears and sweat.

Eventually, soft rain begins drumming onto the roof. A crack of thunder splits into the city, still distant. Then the rain grows heavier, beating into the ground, droplet by droplet, in angry splats.

“I’m sorry, _brother_. I really didn’t mean to—I just, I don’t know how it happened… I wanted to stop, and _I tried_. I did,” Chanyeol sniffs, his voice quivering, edging near a break. Kyungsoo knows Chanyeol isn’t lying. Chanyeol is sorry; Chanyeol didn’t know how it happened, of course not; Chanyeol doesn’t even understand what it means to steal, what it means to make someone fall in love with you and never notice it.

“Please,” Chanyeol says, “ _brother._ I won’t do it again.”

After thirty-two years spent trying to patch and guard and hold it together, Kyungsoo's heart breaks so fast it's almost anti-climatic.

“I’ll let you off if you fuck me,” Kyungsoo suggests.

Chanyeol jerks his head up, eyes wide. Kyungsoo grins and reaches for a cigarette. “Just kidding.”

“Wha—”

“No one’s going to chop your finger off. Besides, what the fuck would the mafia want with a pile of fingers? You think we like keeping souvenirs of you shitheads or something?”

Still crying, snot dribbling over his lips and tears and blood filthy over his chin, Chanyeol chokes on a laugh. Suddenly he’s nine years old again. For a second Kyungsoo can see him wearing those ugly glasses, cheeks chubby with baby fat.

He pulls out a handkerchief and wipes Chanyeol clean, then writes him another check.

“This is for saving my life back then,” Kyungsoo says, “Now we’re even.”

“Your life is only worth two billion won?”

“More than you’d ever be worth,” Kyungsoo says, pushing Chanyeol into a cab, “Don’t pull this shit again. Promise me.”

“I swear to god, I swear on my granny’s grave, I swear I won’t gamble ever again,” Chanyeol says. He means it.

Two days later, Kyungsoo tosses a finger in a Ziploc bag onto Baekhyun’s desk and says it's from Chanyeol, a little later because he lost it in the trunk of his car. To anyone who asks, he slammed his own ring finger in a door and had to get it amputated.

“Wow, hyung-nim could be clumsy too,” Sehun quips. “I thought smart people would be above that.”

Kyungsoo doesn’t protest. Outside the window, the sun sets into a meadow of flames panning out over the sky.

##  (2014) 

“Hey, hello,” Chanyeol says, his voice muffled underneath the oxygen mask. Condensation clouds over his smile.

Kyungsoo rubs his eyes. His neck is sore from sleeping with his head on the nightstand. Apparently grimy plastic hospital chairs are not made for overnight stays. “How are you feeling?”

“Pretty great for taking a knife in the back,” Chanyeol grins, cheeky. If he hadn’t just returned from the brink of death, Kyungsoo might have roughed him up a little for that twinkle in his eye. “But shit, you look like a panda, _brother._ ”

“No I don’t,” Kyungsoo insists. He spends the next two weeks insisting it, between feeding Chanyeol and checking Chanyeol’s IV and escorting him to the toilet. Of course Chanyeol doesn’t willingly let him, but Kyungsoo is stronger and knows how to hurt him when he protests. It’s the least he can do for someone who took a stab wound for him. According to the doctor, it was a miracle that Chanyeol had made it at all. Had the ambulance been two minutes slower, he would’ve died. When Chanyeol’s fallen asleep and the lights are dim, Kyungsoo leans at the window and smokes and runs the doctor’s words through his hands, over and over, turning each corner and always finding new edges to cut.

“All the big bosses wear Armani,” Chanyeol remarks the day before he’s discharged, “Like the cuffs and everything. You think we’ll wear them too?”

“If we live that long.” Kyungsoo shrugs, carving into an apple. Two years into joining the group and here they are in the hospital, one with eight stitches on his back and the other with two broken limbs and a banged up eye. Under this projection, they probably won’t make it past twenty-four. Kyungsoo doesn’t mind, though. A short life is fine too, so long as Chanyeol’s beside him like this.

He feeds a slice to Chanyeol, who chews and decides, “Don’t worry, I’ll be your human shield.”

“Stop saying that,” Kyungsoo snaps, more sharply than he means to. “You could’ve died, you moron. It’s not some joke.”

“What’s the big deal? You’re my _brother_. My life’s your life.”

“No, Chanyeol, get it straight. Your life is your life. I don’t want you pulling this shit again.”

Chanyeol beams. “Jeez, calm down. I was joking,” he says, only he doesn’t laugh. Something cold punches Kyungsoo in the guts, hard and fast.

Six months later, Chanyeol gets married to some cabaret girl he’d met while collecting dues. Kyungsoo misses his wedding, despite the 12 missed calls on his phone.

A year later, Kyungsoo finds a postcard in the mail. _I’m going to quit the business. see ya, brother!_ it says. Quietly and carefully, Kyungsoo tucks the card away in the very bottom of the drawer, where he won’t see it again. There it would be safe, and there, it couldn't hurt him.

##  (2031) 

The third time Chanyeol steals, Junmyeon calls Kyungsoo up on his cell phone.

“Counting on you,” is all Junmyeon says, voice slicing efficiently across the static. “Don’t be late to dinner.”

“Certainly,” Kyungsoo responds. He’s thirty-eight this year, one more death away from leading the biggest crime syndicate in East Asia. At this point in his career, there’s enough blood on his hands to drown an entire police precinct. Guilt has become an acquired taste, the dust settling atop disintegrating skeletons in the closet.

This shouldn't be difficult. Chanyeol is just a childhood friend, after all. He's done in more important people than that.

On the drive to the warehouse, the sky is clear, a blank, endless milky blue. Kyungsoo studies it. He doesn't think he's angry. He's not sad, not surprised. Perhaps he’s seen this coming. With Park Chanyeol, old habits just don't die. He should've known this the first time he found Chanyeol in the cellar, eyes bright and ingenuous, six million won in debt.

By the time Kyungsoo pulls up, they already have Chanyeol kneeling beside the trunk of Kai’s car. Half his head has been mashed in, raw black mounds where there were sockets, rivers of blood sprayed in flecks over his torn wife beater. Silver strands glisten from his hair. He looks a thousand years too old. Yet, somehow Kyungsoo can’t remember seeing Chanyeol any other way. How many years has it been since high school, since that time he stayed up two nights in a row waiting for Chanyeol to return from the brink of death, hand clasped around Chanyeol's, praying to God for an undeserved miracle?

“ _Brother_ …” Chanyeol croaks, groping blindly towards Kyungsoo’s direction. His entire body quakes as he wheezes, as if he were choking in an ocean of air. They’d carved out his corneas. He’s not going to live long, even if they let him go. Kyungsoo didn’t expect it, but when he sees Chanyeol like this, a sharp wrench of pain twists into his heart. “…Sorry… I’m sorry…”

“Does it hurt?” Kyungsoo asks, so softly he scarcely hears himself.

Chanyeol shakes his head. His lower lip quivers. He moans out something, sounds as washed-out as Kyungsoo feels, and Kyungsoo doesn’t realize he’s been holding his breath until Chanyeol reaches out, as far as he can. He’s still wearing that damned watch, the son of a bitch. The hands have long stopped, the leather straps worn thin, and the glass cracked, and seeing it breaks and breaks and breaks Kyungsoo’s heart.

“I’m sorry,” Chanyeol breathes, finally.

Kyungsoo drops on his knees before Chanyeol, wiping the tears off his cheek and smoothing away strands of his hair. He wants to keep quiet and feel the silence distending between them, but the words come out on their own. “Why, why did you—you promised me—you said you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t. Why would you make a promise if you can’t keep it?” He sounds angry, feels so fucking upset—so sad, so tired, so terribly let down, again and again and again—that when he inhales his lungs rupture, and when he cries his entire chest burns, and when he reaches out to strike Chanyeol, to hurt him for all the times Chanyeol had hurt him, he can only fist his shirt and whimper a slow, ebbing stream of _why why why, moron, why, why_.

“ _Brother_ ,” Chanyeol cries. He’s wailing like a baby now, so damned ugly and noisy and helpless, and Kyungsoo puts his arms around him, all of him. Chanyeol stinks of cigarettes and sweat but Kyungsoo hugs him anyway, squeezes him tight the first time in thirty years, because this is his brother, this is his best friend, this is the boy who he used to steal glances at first year of high school, the only person in the universe who can turn his world upside down with a laugh.

“Shh,” Kyungsoo whispers. He presses a kiss to his cheek, a kiss to his ear. “Don’t cry, Chanyeol, it’s okay. I’ve got you. I’ve got you, _brother_.”

Shuddering, Chanyeol eases into his arms and, eventually, slowly, his breathing steadies. Kyungsoo rubs his back, quiet and reassuring. He believes every word when he says, “You’re my brother. My life is your life, right?”

A few steps away, Kai checks his watch, then hands Kyungsoo a pistol, mouthing words.

Kyungsoo stands. He rubs Chanyeol’s back and squeezes his arm one last time, to let him know that everything will be fine. Then he closes his eyes and pulls the trigger.

Chanyeol’s body is warm and heavy as it slumps into Kyungsoo.

Without a noise, Kyungsoo crumples to the ground, all the strength that had held him up vanished in an instant. Chanyeol’s tears are still wet on his cheek, and the only thing he can remember is that image of Chanyeol racing down the fourth years’ corridor, hair and bag bouncing, half-shouting, half-laughing, calling out his name. Chanyeol knuckling his head, screaming with laughter, that endlessly obnoxious mix of life and wonder in his voice. _Hey, brother,_ Chanyeol would say, _let's go conquer the world!_

So the world ends. No storms, no struggling, just a mute whimper.

##  (2008) 

“Who did you pick for your English essay?” Chanyeol asks, quickly flanking Kyungsoo as soon as he walks into the school.

Kyungsoo stink eyes him but answers anyway. “My mom.”

“That’s lame,” Chanyeol dismisses, “Guess who I picked.”

“Your mom?”

“No, god, Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol whines, “I’m way cooler than that.”

“Who then, your uncle? Your dad? Your rabbit?”

“It’s a _ferret,_ ” Chanyeol says, then unfolds a sheet of paper from his pocket. He clears his throat and reads in barely comprehensible English, “ _The person I most trust in world is Do Kyungsoo, because he is smart and nice. He is like my brother. I love you, Do Kyungsoo. Please be friends forever_.”


End file.
